Open(ing) Research in Central Asia:
consolidating a culture of research ethics, data management, and open science, in Eurasia and beyond
With a focus on five Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan), ORCA is a pilot programme dealing with science performance and science management with a specific focus on economics and social sciences. While debates advance within the EU and other high-performing countries, a number of realities is not sufficiently into account and training paths to increased research performance remain limitedly available. The region is a good starting point given the excellent tradition it has in hard sciences and especially engineering during the Soviet period (i.e. the first man in space was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan) that has resulted in continued collaborations whilst research in the economic and social sciences has remained largely under-developed.
ORCA will produce a generation of experts in research policy with focus on the region as a pilot attempt to a) contribute to informing EU (and member state) policies and attitudes towards the region and how to enhance excellent and open science and b) act as multipliers and contribute to the formation of further specialists that will then be able to explore and operate in other regions. ORCA brings together 18 leading institutions across Eurasia, with experience on science excellence and sufficient links with national governments to influence the development of science in the region.
ORCA is a training and research programme designed to meet emerging needs in the region in support of improved research performance and output. It brings together 18 partners of which 8 are from the target region (and it is a rare case where all 5 republics are involved, including Turkmenistan that is often absent in regional programmes: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan). The rest are from the EU/AC and include Moldova and two participants based in the Caucasus. Both regions have benefited from extensive support and, will help mediating, culturally and technically, with the target region with the following goals, targeting practice and policy in economics, social sciences and other fields relevant to the consortium of partners:
1) Research Objective: Produce the first comprehensive informed research on research performance in Central Asia. This will be done through implementation of a comprehensive research programme surveying the status of science evaluation in the target countries of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
2) Training and knowledge sharing Objective: Train both local and EU researchers in publication culture: ethics, integrity, open access, data management. This will be done through secondment opportunities, when EU researchers will be seconded to the region and can share their experiences, deliver trainings and modules in host countries
3) Policy Objective: On the basis of this experience, produce policy recommendations on how these approaches can be structured to seek a dialogue with evaluation institutions and ministries, supporting improved science management, evaluation and open science in the target region, focusing here on economics, social sciences and other fields represented among the ORCA partnership.Â
4) Networking Objective: furthering knowledge exchange, research collaboration and publication between the regions through co-authorship, joint seminars and presentations. This will result in co-authorships, new projects and initiatives.